All this time Grandfather Frog was without hope.  Yes, Sir, poor old Grandfather Frog was wholly in despair.  You see, he didn’t know what the Merry Little Breezes were trying to do, and he was so frightened and confused that he couldn’t think.  When Farmer Brown’s boy dropped him, he lay right where he fell for a few minutes.  Then, right close at hand, he saw an old board.  Without really thinking, he tried to get to it, for there looked as if there might be room for him to hide under it.  It was hard work, for you know his long hind-legs, which he uses for jumping, were tied together.  The best he could do was to crawl and wriggle and pull himself along.  Just as Farmer Brown’s boy started to climb the fence back into the Long Lane, his hat in his hand, Grandfather Frog reached the old board and crawled under it.

Now when the Merry Little Breezes had thrown the dust in Farmer Brown’s boy’s face and snatched his hat, he had dropped Grandfather Frog in such a hurry that he didn’t notice just where he did drop him, so now he didn’t know the exact place to look for him.  But he knew pretty near, and he hadn’t the least doubt but that he would find him.  He had just started to look when the dinner horn sounded.  Farmer Brown’s boy hesitated.  He was hungry.  If he was late, he might lose his dinner.  He could come back later to look for Grandfather Frog, for with his legs tied Grandfather Frog couldn’t get far.  So, with a last look to make sure of the place, Farmer Brown’s boy started for the house.

If the Merry Little Breezes had known this, they would have felt ever so much better.  But they didn’t.  So they hurried as fast as ever they could to find Grandfather Frog’s friends and worked until they were almost too tired to move, for it seemed as if every single one of Grandfather Frog’s friends had taken that particular day to go away from home.  So while Farmer Brown’s boy ate his dinner, and Grandfather Frog lay hiding under the old board in the Long Lane, the Merry Little Breezes did their best to find help for him.

XVII

STRIPED CHIPMUNK CUTS THE STRING

  “Hippy hop!  Flippy flop!  All on a summer day
  My mother turned me from the house and sent me out to play!”

Striped Chipmunk knew perfectly well that that was just nonsense, but Striped Chipmunk learned a long time ago that when you are just bubbling right over with good feeling, there is fun in saying and doing foolish things, and that is just how he was feeling.  So he ran along the old rail fence on one side of the Long Lane, saying foolish things and cutting up foolish capers just because he felt so good, and all the time seeing all that those bright little eyes of his could take in.